On April 29, Brown’s crack negotiation team was “bargaining” with the brainwashed adolescents unlawfully occupying the College Green in support of the Islamic barbarians of Hamas in their genocidal campaign to exterminate the Jews of Israel and the world. The Brown team was likely hard at work making sure they had not forgotten to give anything away to ensure that Commencement and reunion parties would go off without a hitch. Give the kids a vote on “divestment”- check; amnesty - check; no mention of Hamas or October 7 - check. Also on April 29, for some impossible to fathom reason, Brown’s Office of Institutional Equity and Diversity thought it would be just the perfect time to have a discourse on Islamophobia.
Needless to say, there is no reported evidence of Islamophobia at Brown - none. As I have previously noted, unlike the Jewish students at Brown, no Muslim students have had anti-Muslim notes slipped under their apartment doors; no Muslim leaders of any Muslim group at Brown have received anonymous threats of violence; no building housing any Muslim organization has been defaced with anti-Muslim graffiti. Needless to say, no Brown students, whether Jewish or not, have ever paraded around campus with their faces covered screeching, say, “Brown must cut all ties to any Muslim country where women do not have the same rights as men” or carrying Hamas flags with swastikas emblazoned on them (however fitting that would be). Had there been even one such incident, the wannabe Al-Jazeera “journalists” of the Brown Daily Herald would have been all over the story for days with multiple interviews, photos, etc. And of course the perpetrators of such free speech exercises would be suspended or expelled from Brown in a heartbeat.
Nevertheless, there is a huge market at Brown for buying and selling Islamophobia as equivalent to the rampant anti-Semitism of the sort not seen in our country since, e.g., Henry Ford controlled Dearborn, Michigan. (The more things change, the more they remain the same.) This is the market that Islamophobia entrepreneur Amer F. Ahmed exploits as he did at Brown last week.
So who is Ahmed? According to News from Brown, he was “born and raised in Ohio as the son of Muslim immigrants” and works at the University of Vermont as “vice-provost for diversity, equity and inclusion and chief diversity officer”. He holds an Ed.D. in adult and higher education from the University of South Dakota, a Masters in Afro-American and African diaspora studies and anthropology from Indiana University and a bachelors in anthropology and Black World Studies from Miami of Ohio.
His personal website differs in a tellingly significant way:
“Dr. Ahmed is the Founder and CEO of AFA Diversity Consulting, LLC, a consulting practice dedicated to enhancing the development of organizations through efforts around leadership, professional development, assessment and strategic change. In addition to his consulting work, Dr. Ahmed currently serves as Vice Provost for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion and Faculty in the Higher Education and Student Affairs Administration program in the College of Education and Social Services at University of Vermont.”
Ahmed also is a speaker on the SpeakOut roster, a roster that includes legendary anti-Semites and apologists for Islamic terrorism such as Noura Erekat, Linda Sarsour and Marc Lamont Hill.
It seems there can be no real question that Ahmed’s main line of work, or at least a line of work as important to him as his work at the University of Vermont, is business, the business of selling Islamophobia, real or imagined. When it comes to college campuses, it involves identifying a problem that doesn’t exist and then getting hired to solve it.
As noted above, there has been no sign of Islamophobia at Brown. Were there signs of Islamophobia recently at Michigan, Columbia, Princeton, USC, George Washington, NYU? Anywhere? If so, what were the facts? Where was the press coverage?
Yet in December, Ahmed gave an interview to the publication “Diverse”. In that interview, according to Diverse, “[Ahmed] hasn’t seen Islamophobia of this intensity in the U.S. since the post 9/11 era.” He went on to note that “The current lack of awareness about the rise of Islamophobia on U.S. campuses is problematic.” He added that “there’s definitely antisemitism on campuses. But I think that we’re not hearing a lot on a number of our campuses about the rising Islamophobia at the same time…My sense is there’s not been the level of concern or focus that there needs to be to try to mitigate dangerous rhetoric or perceptions that result in violent acts, like we’ve seen here in Burlington” referring to the tragic shooting of Brown student Hisham Awartani and two of his friends.
The lack of awareness about the rise of Islamophobia on college campuses is because, in reality, it’s a non-issue. That is “problematic” for Ahmed because if there is no real Islamophobia problem, his consulting business suffers.
The Awartani shooting has been front and center in Islamophobia world since it happened. But given the facts known about the shooter and that over five months have passed since the shooting with no charge of a hate crime, what if the prosecutors don’t charge a hate crime? Ahmed and others in the high-octane Islamophobia business never let the facts interfere with the narrative. They have it covered as to Awartani no matter what the prosecutors wind up doing: hate crime charged, Islamophobia; no hate crime charged, Islamophobia; hate crime charged, guilty verdict, Islamophobia; hate crime charged, defense verdict, Islamophobia. It’s a win/win for the Islamophobia peddlers no matter what. See below.
What did Ahmed have to say at Brown on April 29? His presentation was entitled “Addressing Islamophobia: Dispelling Myths to Break Down Barriers”? The News from Brown story is attached below. One highlight was the following observation by Ahmed:
“It’s important to make a distinction between what a religion teaches and what people do. People do all different kinds of things in the name of religion.”
The Hamas Charter, in the plainest of language possible, teaches the Islamic martyrdom-seekers of Hamas to kill Jews. The Hamas terrorists are dedicated to, and have long acted on that religious mandate. That is precisely why every single man, woman and child killed since October 7 - irrespective of birthplace, citizenship or religion - is 100% attributable to Hamas. Boko Haram has killed tens of thousands of Christians in Nigeria and displaced millions more in its multi-year effort to overthrow the Nigerian government and establish an Islamic state. Africacenter.org reports that “fatalities linked to militant Islamist violence [in Africa] rose by 20% in the past year (from 19,412 in 2022 to 23,322 - a record level of lethal violence. This represents a near doubling of deaths since 2021.”) Isis in Iraq and Syria? Attacks by Islamists in Paris, Brussels, the UK, recently in Moscow, the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, 9/11 - the list is endless. (To my knowledge there never has been an occupation of university land or even a mild protest at Brown with respect to any of those atrocities committed by the admitted true believers.)
The Middle East Media Research Institute translates into English and other languages anti-Semitic venom inciting violence that spills out of mosques in the U.S. and around the world practically every Friday calling for jihad against Jews and Christians and other infidels. Can there be any doubt that some terrorists have acted based on what they are told or believe their religion dictates? Is stating undisputed facts Islamophobia? For many in the Islamophobia business, of course it is.
The approach Ahmed and the rest of the cogs in the Islamophobia machine take is to divert attention from the fact that, far too often, there is no distinction “between what a religion teaches and what people do.” A favorite diversion is, of course, to trot out millenia-old conspiracy theories about Jews, the blood libel for example. Since October 7, another favorite is inversion. That is, to make specious claims about Israelis as Nazis when, for example, leaders of the Muslim world during World War II were in bed with Hitler; Israelis as engaging in genocide when the genocide of Jews is the expressly stated purpose of the rapists, beheaders, murderers, and hostage takers of Hamas; and the ludicrous claim that Israel is a South Africa-style apartheid state especially since real apartheid is the law of the land in virtually every Muslim country.
To be fair to Ahmed, he was careful to stay away from any of the fact-free delusions noted above and favored by many Islamophobia marketers. He was far more subtle, as in “this whole thing about Islam is all just a misunderstanding”, a misunderstanding that he and his consulting firm will happily clear up, presumably for a fee. But that approach brings to mind the famous question: “who you gonna believe, me or your lyin’ eyes”? (Did Ahmed appear at Brown “pro bono”, so to speak, or did Brown pay him? If the latter, one wonders how much his visit cost the university.)
Also to be fair, there are nearly 2 billion Muslims in the world; the majority of whom are decent, fair-minded people who want to live in peace. But if only one-half of one percent of the world‘s Muslims are crazed martyrdom seekers, that’s around 10,000,000 people. When Ahmed said at Brown that “democratic values are under threat in our world” was he thinking of those 10,000,000 people? If not, he should have been - they are the only real threat to democracy here and around the world.
During Ahmed’s presentation, Sylvia Carey-Butler, Brown’s Vice-President for Institutional Equity and Diversity Chief Diversity Officer noted that “discomfort feels palpable on many college campuses, including at Brown”. She added “just take a look outside…demonstrators were encamped on the College Green as part of a national movement on college campuses and beyond in response to the Israel-Hamas war that began on Oct. 7.” (The “Israel-Hamas war” is the politically correct way the conflict is described at Brown. Institutional equity forbids describing the current conflict as “the Hamas-initiated war against Israel and its Jews that began on October 7 when Hamas broke an existing ceasefire and raped, beheaded, tortured, murdered and took as hostages upwards of 1200 Jews” or anything remotely factual. It’s the same rule that forbids mentioning anti-Semitism without saying Islamophobia in the same breath.)
One thing is absolutely certain. Despite Carey-Butler’s anodyne comment about “discomfort” feeling “palpable”, the only people feeling any “discomfort” were Jewish students having to look at their classmates supporting the goals of a genocidal Islamic cult focused on eliminating Israel and its Jews and targeting themselves as well. I doubt a single Muslim connected to Brown - not one student, not one faculty member, not one staff person - felt the least bit of “discomfort” on any day the unlawful occupiers of university space were on the Green.
How did Ahmed react to Carey-Butler’s “discomfort” comment?:
“I know it’s a very active day on campus and it is incredibly meaningful for me to be here today, specifically at Brown University…Ahmed said.”
He elaborated on what was meaningful about his visit to Brown in a post a few days after his presentation:
“I want to thank Brown University for having me on campus Monday. It’s hard to express the emotions of speaking at the institution that Hisham Awartani, the now paralyzed Palestinian-American student shot 3 blocks from my office, attends. The student encampment was right outside of the reception and program they held for me. Students were in negotiations with senior leaders during the program and came to an agreement. I hope more campuses look to Brown’s example on how to peacefully resolve these campus challenges that so many of us are currently navigating.”
His post was accompanied by pictures of the unlawful occupiers and their tents.
Of course his appearance was meaningful to him. Brown handed him the opportunity to make the obligatory Awartani reference while at Brown. And right outside the room where he gave his talk, he could actually see the encampment! Brown “peacefully” resolved the occupation by being the first university in the U.S. to, shamefully, cave to occupier demands for a vote on divestment. Not hard to get a deal when you give away the store. Obviously he sees Brown’s approach as a model - give the unlawful occupiers everything they ask for and you have a deal.
He added “This climate is not going to change tomorrow - it’s just not. And so we have to be able to come together and support each other in our healing.” What was he talking about, and to whom, when he spoke of healing? Who knows - it is, after all, just meaningless babble.
The only possible reason for Ahmed’s visit to Brown, including perhaps especially its timing, was to allow Brown’s diversity office to push its phony equivalence argument. There is no equivalence at all between the Berlin 1933-style anti-Semitism on full display at Brown and around the country and whatever, if anything, is being experienced by Muslims or Muslim students. Even the suggestion that there is an equivalence is ludicrous - students and faculty supporters of Hamas at Brown hold the microphone and have total control over the conversation. That control is, in part, a function of the poisonous, anti-Semitic, Palestinian agitprop that for years has been ceaselessly emanating from Brown’s Center for Middle East Studies.
The timing and substance of Ahmed’s presentation at Brown further underscore how far off the rails Brown is willing to go to appeal to and appease the Islamists among its students and faculty. Another sign of the apocalypse at Brown, in academia more broadly, and in America and around the world.
Willis J. Goldsmith, Brown Class of 1969